


The Long Road

by taichara



Category: Gundam Wing Frozen Teardrop
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 02:21:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1762785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Father Maxwell's seen more in his days than he cares to think about, most time -- and, therefore, generally chooses to put all that mess out of mind completely. Crisscrossing Mars' dusty surface grifting gambler's dens and bringing in bounties may be a far cry from being the chaotic force of nature behind a metal-and-plasma death machine, sure, but it works for him. The Reaper's still riding, it's just gotten more up close and personal; and that one stubborn bounty <i>will</i> go down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at my DW [here](http://taichara.dreamwidth.org/1314.html) for the Gundam Wing Big Bang.
> 
> The art pieces in this work were created by the lovely comixologist ([comixologist @ LJ](http://comixologist.livejournal.com/) and [ishipitgood @ Tumblr](http://ishipitgood.tumblr.com/)); their gallery for the work can be found on Pixiv [here](http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35433550).
> 
> Links in the fic body link to individual artworks; there are three of these, not counting the imbedded cover image below.

  


[[1200x900]](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/comixologist/2005538/120265/120265_original.png) * [[1600x1200]](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/comixologist/2005538/120432/120432_original.png)

 

_MC-0021 First Spring_

Across the rusted red wastes of Mars, a lone cycle sped through the scree and jumped a series of broken outcroppings, arrowing towards an unpaved stretch of roadway that bisected the stony wastelands like a scar. Its rider was swathed in heavy riding gear, complete with poncho-like coat — hood pulled up, thank you — and goggles firmly in place, which to the eyes of any discriminating Martian marked the traveller as one of those eccentrics who spent as much time or more traveling through the empty Martian wastelands as sticking near safety and civilization. Oh, sure, Mars had been made fit enough for human habitation — if one ignored the gravity and its inevitable effects on a body — but “terraforming” hardly meant “paradise”. The thin air was still chill by Terran standards, and further out from the miraculous oceans and lakes the ‘former teams had resurrected it was still stone and dust stretching as far as the eye could see. A few small struggling patches of greenery here and there, certainly, those smaller and tinier miracles; but dwarfed by the barren lands that surrounded them.

All things being equal Mars was still a blasted, barren desert, red with iron like ancient bloodstains soaked into the stone, and that appealed to the lone rider’s sense of irony like virtually nothing else on the planet. Mars was still a hardscrabble place, and that suited Father Maxwell just fine.

_Just the kind of planet for someone like me. Too bad ‘Sister’ decided to stay around instead of making out better, but them’s the breaks sometimes. She’d lose all the chances she’s got to bitch me out and threaten a dozen more broken bones if she did, heh._

His dry chuckling rattled across the stones like a faint counterpoint to the roaring of the cycle’s engine. Hell no, good ol’ Sister Hilde would never pull up stakes and head back to Earth even if the opportunity presented itself, no more than the ‘good’ Father was willing to grift his winnings into passage back to the nest himself. No, they had things they both wanted — needed — to be doing on Mars, for better or worse.

_Mostly worse. That’s me, naturally. Hilde’s doing the good work, keeping up on her field even stuck at the orphanage, and that rundown mess of kids’ll keep her here til the day she dies and she’ll never give over and have someone else step up and take the damn place. Probably even a higher priority than the first one, the damned orphanage._

_Meanwhile I’m a useless wreck spending my days wandering off and getting bitched at and battered for my pains. But I come back again, and I know it, and she knows it. Come to think of it, ‘back’ is something I’d better get to doing before she thinks I’m dead in a gully somewhere — quarterlies are coming up and I got things to delive—aww fuck me_

A change in the quality of the light, unrelated to the approaching dusk, caught the Father’s attention and, slowing the beast of a bike to a gradual halt (spinning out into the scree was a Bad Thing he had no intention of repeating, damn brittle bones), he shoved hood down and goggles up. The sky overhead, tinged with rusted pink like thinned-out blood on the best of days, looked weighted down with swollen, ruddy clouds to the west but moving steadily closer on the swift, thin winds. Swearing under his breath, Father Maxwell gave his cycle’s fuselage a thump, yanked his gear back into place and opened up the throttle, loose scree be damned.

_Looks like another blood rain again. Just what I damn well need. Well old girl, we’d better make it to Hellas Minor soon or we’re going to get soaked to the skin and buried._

Dust storms were bad news, awful news really, but mercifully rare in these parts outside the season; rainstorms, nothing but real rain that the hungry ground sucked up in minutes, those were almost as rare. But the so-called ‘blood rains’ — rain clouds that sucked up half a dust storm in the process — those were a hell Maxwell hated beyond belief. The sodden silt the storms left behind caked everything in a gritty shell, weighted down a body (when it didn’t grate the skin off you) and, worst of all, worked into every nook and cranny of unprotected machinery. If he got caught out in that mess, his ride was doomed and probably his own self right along with it.

Squinting at the horizon and scanning quickly, Father Maxwell gauged the speed of the onrushing storm and the distance to the faintly green-tinted smudge to the northeast that was Hellas Minor. Yeah, if he went flat out he should make it in time to find a hostel — or better, a bar — and go to ground before the rains hit. Hell, he might even manage to bag a bit more cash for his debts before moving on.

_Odds of that one bastard being out here in east fucking nowhere are exactly nothing, but I might stumble across some small fry from the list and clear out a patch of trouble. Even if I don’t manage that kind of luck, there’s always idiots ready to gamble their money away and I have no problem at all conveniently helping them along with that goal —_

-*-

Rocketing towards Hellas Minor ahead of the storm, 'that one bastard' occupied as much of the good Father’s thoughts as navigating the poorly maintained road did.

One of the perennial frustrations of a bounty hunter was the occasional bounty that just did not want to let themselves be bagged like a good walking paycheque, and that one bastard was an especially aggravating example of the breed. A right wonderful piece of work, this 'Dion Rider' was — mercurial, unpredictable, wandering from one civilized point to the next with no rhyme or reason, picking fights, occasionally killing folks in the street in his so-called games and duels, a bit of smash-and-grab to go with the rest of his antics … and, most maddening of all for what passed for authorities, this Dion had proven slippery as a greased weasel and twice as canny. With Rider proving impossible to bring in the conventional way — or maybe they were tired of losing warm bodies, Maxwell hadn’t decided which it really was — the powers that be had issued an official bounty. Well, as official as any bounties ever got. But money was money and there was an impressive figure attached to that bastard’s name …

That sum, impressive as it was, was not what had attracted Father Maxwell’s attention. No, that had been the description of Rider he’d heard circulating through his chains of contacts; anyone with uncanny marksmanship, middling indeterminate age — and, most importantly, pale eyes and virtually colourless hair — was a body Maxwell wanted to get to before some two-bit loser from a farmstead picked him off with a lucky shot.

_I’d thought he could’ve been Cyrene working under some other alias again and finally cracked under the strain, wanted to find out and find him, put him out of his misery if I had to, before something happened to his kid assuming it hadn’t happened already. S’pose it should’ve occurred to me that if Cyrene’d really cracked he wouldn’t be shooting nobodies in the street and pulling off felonies, he’d be annihilating whole towns with that behemoth of his. Assuming he’s still got it._

_It was a good enough theory though, even for a fool like me. It’s not like he had the thing with him when he foisted Naina on me in that tavern, after all._

But no, Rider wasn’t Wind, not unless Wind had undertaken a hell of a lot more effort with changing his appearance than he’d ever given a damn for before this. Rider had the long hair Wind had given up, but more of a grey colourless 'blond' than the vaguely milky mess that grew from Wind’s scalp, and was both taller and more wiry, with a bonier face and, if the video feeds attached to the bounty file were any indication, a perpetual lopsided smirk that was just a little too wide. And a small toy panda dangling from his coat. (Maxwell sometimes wondered why he’d latched onto that little detail and ultimately decided it was the sheer fuckery of it all.)

_Hell, right now I’m even gladder he’s just some idiot living a charmed life, because that means I can collect instead of being Mister Concerned Enemy-Turned-Semi-Associate. Fucker’s got a price on his head and I plan to claim it one way or another from the bastard._

That Rider looked to be Father Maxwell’s age — _proper_ age, physically, without the ravages that the Father had had to deal with that aged him long before his time, and more bone-deep than simple desert weathering would have or could have inflicted on his leathery extremities — was a more personal kind of affront, and Maxwell had every intention to indulge himself in removing said affront. Sure, it was the most crass sort of pettiness, but it’s not like the bastard didn’t have a price on his head already. And Father Maxwell would be the first to admit that he was no kind of decent human being to be expected to be above taking petty insult because some other jerk had better luck. No sir, that kind of thing was for better folks than him. He was just a grifter and a bounty hunter and the most false kind of priest to ever wear the collar.

_And this false priest, right this second, wants a damn drink._

Looming ahead lay Hellas Minor, another industrial patch in the middle of nowhere, and Maxwell put aside his internal bitching over bounties and artificially-induced medical geezerhood to turn his attention towards more important things like finding a place to hole up. Slowing to a more practical speed as he crossed into the town proper — village, more like — he threw back his hood again and let his gaze travel slowly down the main drag, ignoring the questioning stares he was receiving as he moved down the road. Somewhere in the town centre there should be _some_ kind of bar or stop-over or even a bed and breakfast —

_Bingo._

Off to his right, some three blocks further down the street, a lazily swinging neon sign (Neon? That was almost kind of funny; he wondered if they took it in during the storms) proclaimed that it belonged to the Ares Bar and Grill, but the steel-cased building it dangled from was clearly some kind of boarding house. Well, that would work just fine.

_That’s a real original name for the place, folks, I’m sure the god of war would approve of getting himself attached to a rundown beerhole like this one. Hell, people, at least do something to pretend to have stuff on offer that isn’t just the only option in town …_

_Still, have to admit the place looks like the best option I’ve seen in fucking days. Food, check. Booze, check. Place to crash, check; likely filled with idiots waiting to be fleeced and/or potential sources of information or income, check. Sounds like a plan, Maxwell, let’s get to that. Maybe I’ll even give myself the luxury of actually stopping over for the night, it’s not like I haven’t been late arriving before this. She won’t bitch that much if I point out it was — mostly — weather related. Doesn’t want to hear about me being scraped up off the rocks in a bloody pile of broken again, after all._

-*-

Making himself at home in yet another dusty bar was something Father Maxwell was all too familiar with, and he had every intention of making said bar his first real stop. Much to his surprise the Ares also offered secure vehicle storage — that actually _was_ secure! — and he promptly ponied up the extra cash to bring his lady inside where she’d be equally safe from the weather and whatever idiots that might try to make off with the massive cycle. Not that he didn’t have more than one nasty surprise built in for anyone not firing the beast up in _exactly_ the right way, but still.

He wasn’t willing to trust the contents of his saddleboxes to the goodwill of the greasy proprietor, however, and went through the trouble of lugging his gear up to the tiny room he’d rented for the night (and installed his own lock on the door; they could complain about it later). Then, with gear stored and riding rig tossed across the narrow bed, he raked a sinewy hand through his greying hair, tucked his pistols more firmly beneath his cassock, and made his way down to the bar.

-*-

Dust, tracked-in dirt and remnants of ashtray refuse, half-forgotten meals and the odd broken bottle; factory workers off duty, hangdog itinerants down on their luck and a handful of locals looking ready to abandon their table while the getting was good. Shouting, swearing, and the occasional burst of triumphant, mocking laughter when some lucky jackass won a round of poker; the tavern floor was everything that Father Maxwell had expected it to be, which suited him just fine. Continuing to cheerfully ignore the stares he was receiving (who expected to see a grizzled priest in bad need of a trim to his hair in a bar filled with reprobates?), he strode to the countertop, plunked himself onto the first available stool, and ordered his drinks.

_What I’m doing next depends on you fine people, so show me what you got if you don’t mind._

His whiskey clattered to a stop next to his hand, ice whirling, and he nursed the drink as he scanned over his fellow patrons. It wouldn’t pay to get himself blitzed when there might be work to do — work first, then blitzing if he still had the luxury.

There seemed to be no fewer than four different knots of gamblers taking up space at the tables, three poker games and a group going the old-fashioned way and dicing away their funds; of the four, the poker players closest to the back of the tavern looked the likeliest to allow a stranger to join into the game. The rest of the bar patrons were either caught up in their own little worlds or were still staring; even better, said stares were definitely of the ‘what the fuck is a priest doing here’ variety, and not the ‘shit, it’s that killer priest’ kind. That sort of attention Father Maxwell was definitely not feeling up to dealing with. The place was, indeed, more or less like every other dive he’d made a pit stop in …

_... Hold up now. Who’s that over in the corner, all by his lonesome? Why, I do believe it’s “Butcher” Clayton, the overrated prick. Looks like I’m going to be getting myself a bit of action in Hellas Minor after all._

Leaning into the bar, Maxwell propped himself on one elbow and gestured to the barkeep with his glass. The portly man trundled over, curious — the glass still being half-full, and a second already waiting — but didn’t get so much as a word out of his mouth before the Father was leaning in closer, voice dropped to a harsh whisper.

“That jackass in the corner, with the greasy black hair and the bad attitude. The one holding court over nothing. He been causing problems for you or anyone else around here?”

“Ah …”

Gaze flicking back and forth nervously, hands wringing, the man was clearly reluctant to comment. Heaving a sigh of exasperation, Maxwell thudded his glass onto the countertop.

“Just answer the question, yes or no. I don’t need details and I don’t give a fuck about them. Hell, I probably know more of them than you do. Just answer the damn question. That bastard been causing problems?”

“Ah … yeah. Trying to start some kind of ‘protection’ —”

Maxwell snorted. Yeah, that sounded like Clayton alright, small fry that he was.

“That’s all I want to hear. Police aren’t doing fuckall about it?”

“No one’s pressed charges and there’s no —”

“And no one’s come to collect the stupid fucker already.”

“What —”

“Good. Get ready to duck.”

With that Father Maxwell tossed back the rest of his whiskey in one swig, rolled his shoulders with a twisted little grin, and slid from his stool to half amble, half limp towards Clayton. Now he had the undivided attention of the entire tavern — not that he cared — as well as that of the man at the table who was casually pulling out a knife nearly as long as his forearm and pretending to pare his dirty fingernails with it. Maxwell quirked an eyebrow at the show but his grin stayed in place.

“I’ve heard you’ve been making folks uncomfortable around here, Clayton.”

The extortionist barely looked up from his ‘chore’, but the infinitesimal change in his tension spoke volumes to Maxwell; Clayton was ready to lunge at any moment. Well, if that was how it was going to be, too bad for Clayton.

“I’m just a simple working man making sure that honest folks get what they need, Father. Simple, honest folks, they need someone watching out for them, making sure that the big wolves at the door don’t go fleecing the sheep —”

“Is that so? What do you think, ‘honest folks’? He keeping the wolves away?”

Tucking his hands into his cassock and tilting his head towards the now-agitated crowd — surely the picture of the demure and questioning man of the cloth, surely indeed — Maxwell didn’t expect an answer. The silent, shuffling edging towards every exit in the place spoke louder than words ever would; he could all but hear the questions hanging unspoken in the air: was the priest insane? What did he think he was doing?

_I really am in the back end of nowhere, or else there’s been an advantage after all to not pulling too many jobs too close to the nest. Well, so much for that anyway._

Hitching one shoulder in a lazy shrug, he turned his attention back to Clayton in time to see the man, his face blooming red with anger, lunging up and away from the table.

“You don’t start causing any grief for me, priest, and I’ll let you walk outta here —”

“Do you believe in hell, Clayton?”

The knife glittered in the dim sulphurous lights, and Maxwell kept his attention firmly on Clayton. Not the blade, the man who wielded it. This could get a little close for comfort.

“Shut up, priest, ‘fore I gut you like a pig. You just step on outta here now, and maybe nothing’ll have to happen and you won’t get nothing but a bit of hurt pride. The rest of these folks, well, someone obviously said something to you, maaaybe in some confessional —”

– Clayton’s gaze flicked towards the barkeep, who froze in place like a terrified kitten —

“—and I’m gonna have to have some words with them once you pack your black dress up and get your holy ass out of —”

“Two things, Clayton, so listen close because I don’t like to repeat myself when I’m giving free lessons.”

Maxwell’s eyes narrowed into two murky blue pits.

“First thing: it’s not a ‘dress’, it’s a cassock. Men of the cloth don’t wear ‘dresses’. Second thing —”

Whip-fast, ignoring the burn in his shoulders ( _‘Damnit damnit getting too old before my time for this’_ ), Father Maxwell pulled his hands free of the enveloping black fabric with his fingers curled around the grips of his favorite pistols. The first shot thudded into the grifter’s chest, ribcage blossoming with crimson; the second tore a hole clean through his forehead. Mouth gaping soundlessly, ‘Butcher’ Clayton slowly crumpled to the dusty floor.

The glittering blade skittered towards Maxwell’s boot, and he stooped to pick it up. Could be useful out on the road, after all.

“Hey, proprietor, do a Father a favour and call up the dispatch for whatever passes for law enforcement around here, would you? I have something to collect.”

-*-

As soon as the storm had passed — which it took its dead time in doing, making the roads a slog and offroading worse — Father Maxwell had packed himself up and gotten out of Hellas Minor before the locals got themselves too worked up for comfort. The town, as it turned out, wasn’t _quite_ rough enough to appreciate having a bounty taken in the middle of the tavern, and the police had none-too-gently suggested that he light out as soon as possible. That was fine by him; he had more than enough travel ahead of him, he might as well get a move on before he found himself getting tempted. One night, he’d given himself, and there was no reason to really be tempting fate — and Hilde’s wrath — by dragging his heels. There had been no leads on Rider either, which gave more reason to move on …

By the time he was approaching Schbeiker Orphanage closely enough to have the building in sight, he was wondering what was going to be waiting for him this time.

By the time he was close enough to see the lone figure standing in the grassy front courtyard, hands clearly on hips, he was steeling himself for the worst.

-*-

Much to Maxwell’s surprise, Hilde _wasn’t_ lying in wait to murder him as soon as he dismounted from his bike. Oh, she was agitated enough, but it wasn’t from being annoyed at him — would wonders never cease — but it was definitely something important, something important enough that she’d stopped trying to hide it from the kids who were swarming around him, yelling and hugging and generally being kids, with the exception of Duo who only gave him a sullen glare and started off with the bike to put it in storage and look it over. Between tickling the youngsters and greeting the older children, Maxwell cast a questioning glance in Hilde’s direction and was met with nothing but a stony look and a shake of her head.

Well, that was nothing good.

“Okay, kids, I need to have a talk with Sister and then I’ll be back. No, Julie, I promise I’ll see your doll before I need to leave again. Okay, okay, I’ll be out in the yard as soon as we’ve had our talk, I promise —”

Little hands pulled from the skirt of his cassock and little bodies shooed away, Maxwell made his escape up the front porch and veered left towards the office where he knew Hilde would be waiting. She was already seated at her desk, hands folded, formality radiating from her in waves, and it was only by sheer willpower that he managed to hold back a sigh.

“Fire away, Hilde, I’m listening. I’ve got more than enough for the kids and the building this quarter but I figure you don’t want to hear it right now and it can wait anyway. What’s going on?”

“You have a message from a bitchy spider in its web about a sleeping beauty and some prospective knights in shining armour.”

The wry quirk to Hilde’s mouth — all the humour she was willing to show over the subject — more than expressed her thoughts on the phrasing of the bit of coded message she’d just passed along. Before she’d even finished the comment, however, Maxwell was already facepalming with both hands.

“You’re kidding. What the fuck do they want now?”

[“Shut it, _Father_ , the children might be listening in](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/comixologist/2005538/121068/121068_original.png) and you can at least make an attempt to not be foulmouthed if you can’t be any other kind of example for them.

“I don’t know what they’re looking for this time; it might be nothing except to check in on the status of the code you’re carrying. The only other detail I have to offer is that they want to meet you at the usual place, and they’re asking about Duo.”

Hands now lowered to his lap, Maxwell rolled his eyes heavenward. Not this shit again, honestly.

“You’d think someone who hates kids and damn near everything and everyone else on two planets half the time would have something else to ask about …”

“I don’t care about the details of said spider’s personal life and interests, Maxwell, and neither do you; we both know that. It’s probably all an act. I’m not going to tell you not to see what’s going on, either, because that’s a promise I know I can’t extract from you.”

Shrugging, he leaned back in his chair, feeling the wood creak behind him, and gave Hilde his best imitation of his old smile.

“And I know you really wouldn’t want to anyway, not over this. This is different, right? Not the same thing as me wandering around being a deadbeat reprobate — by the way, here’s the take for my most recent reprobate antics, all tallied up and ready. I’m damn glad I tagged that last one on the road back in, too, because it sounds like I’m going to be on the road for a while.”

As he spoke he drew a reinforced satchel from the inner lining of his long coat, opening the locks and revealing the vouchers, credsticks and bundles of hard cash secured inside.

“Everything’s accounted for and then some, just so you know where it’s coming from, and should cover this quarter and most of the next.

“I’m going to go spend some time with the kids and see whether the hellion’s managed to mangle my bike yet. See you at noon meal, Sister?”

-*-

Agreeing to meet with his one-time companions had been one thing; but as was always the case, that insufferable, canny bastard — as Maxwell so cheerfully and without rancour thought of 'Master Chang' — had anticipated his decision once again. On the one hand, it was maddening to be reminded that Chang found him so utterly predictable; but, on the other hand, it at least meant that he had no need to find his own way north. Travel via military transport was so much more convenient.

_Damn good thing too, seeing as I'd be dead and a frozen priestsicle before anyone found my frostbit ass stuck to my bike in that icy hellhole, seriously ..._

On the gripping hand, mused Maxwell as the line went dead and he dropped the connection, the _next_ time he'd have to deliberately change his mind at the last split second just to spite the bastard for thinking he was so clever. He could take his conveniently arranged transportation then and shove it where the sun didn't shine, just the once —

-*-

That evening Maxwell made a point of spending a bit more time with the youngsters before bedtime caught up with them. The rugrunners were used to seeing him hare off for weeks or even months at a time, true — it kept the plaints of 'but you haaave to stay here Father Maxwell' to a dull roar, a fact that he was eternally grateful for, though he'd never admit to another breathing soul. Hilde knew, despite his best attempts at bravado (little did he realize that her knowledge spared him more than one return to time in traction), of course, and he suspected that one way or another the kids knew just as well ...

Except, of course, for the defiant bundle of anger that stood between him and his bike the following morning. Maxwell heaved a sigh that was only half for show. Not this shit again, seriously kid. _Why._

"Duo, knock it off. I know we're both used to this song and dance routine and we'd probably miss it if we just gave it up cold turkey, but just this once I'd like to get moving without some grudge match.

"I've got a transport to catch and folks waiting for me, I don't have time to start slinging mud with a mini-me."

“Then maybe you should start actually _thinking_ about me and everyone else here — like, oh, Sister Hilde — and I _know_ I could be saying something _else_ about her out loud but I’m not wasting my breath because _she_ doesn’t need to put up with it — and stop being such a stupid selfish _jackass_ and actually stay here longer than one stupid night!”

“That’s enough, kid. Seriously, shut it. I’m not in the mood to listen to your bitching and whining.

“This is work, Duo, bigger than what I’ve been doing, yeah bigger than just this orphanage, and it’s going to trickle down _fast_ when it gets moving.”

He sighed again, with much more feeling this time. Damned brat.

“Look, I don’t have time for this, and I said that already. Where I’m going, kid, I might just hear something about whatever’s going on with Naina and her father —”

Maxwell saw the wave of shock sweep over Duo’s face, followed by barely concealed eagerness, and he hid a satisfied little smile of his own; poor ornery little bastard was easy to predict, sometimes. Was this why Chang took such sick joy in the same thing? Oh, probably —

“—and I know damn well that’s something you wouldn’t mind the old man looking into, hey? So stop yapping like a puppy and help me get the lady prepped and loaded, then get your ass in bed before Sister comes down here to bitch _both_ of us out.

“I’ll be coming right back again this time to give Sister the update, so you won’t be waiting that long on an old reprobate priest.”

Eyes wide, expression now secretive and speculating, Duo said not another word and did as he was told; and the good father, recognizing that look from his own younger and less devious years, debated just how long he was going to manage to keep Chang and the other troublemakers away from the kid.

-*-

Hunkered down in three layers of protective clothing — he would have liked it to be thirty, he felt so damned cold — Maxwell renewed his bitter oaths to never again expose his weathered, wretched carcass to the north’s bitter wastelands again until the apocalypse came. As the spec-ops hover transport bounded and glided its way across the edge of the Borealis Sea, he stared fitfully out the window of the cab and was grateful there was, at least, no storm blanketing the place in yet _more_ white. Ye _fuck_ did he hate winter; it made his bones ache and old breaks ache even more. Obviously it didn’t bother Chang, but that bastard had ice water for blood anyway; he probably thought he was in the tropics, for fuck’s sake.

Maxwell’s irritated ruminations brought a flush of angry warmth to his extremities even as the transport cleared the last few kilometres of the Sea and, sidling up to what appeared to be a cavernous maw slowly gaping wide in the side of a weather-beaten crater, slipped down said maw’s metal gullet and came to a neat stop in the auxiliary hangar of Mars Preventer Base Ares.

“So I suppose, since you deigned to make the trip this time, Maxwell, that you also know why I called you here?”

The tight, clipped words burrowed like a knife in his ear the moment Maxwell had slid from the cab and touched booted feet to the bare plating of the hangar floor. A sidewise glance revealed the speaker, whipcord and lean muscle and stony eyes, greying hair still pulled back into a single severe tail (and, briefly, Maxwell mourned his own braid, now years gone) and Preventer uniform immaculately pressed; oh, Chang was clearly as hardassed as he ever was. Cheerfully aware of his own rumpled and weatherbeaten state, Maxwell tossed Chang a lazy not-quite-salute and shrugged expressively.

“I know exactly what you put into the message, no more, no less. ‘Course I can make a few little inferences about the subjects, and one in particular, but I figure we’ll be wanting a bit of _privacy_ before we get to the good stuff? Or are you sharing secrets with your underlings in your old age, eh Chang?”

“Ha. You’re one to talk about _old age_ , you reckless idiot. But I’ll allow that you’re correct, this time at least. Privacy is still of paramount importance for this.”

A little smile almost threatened to escape as Chang dismissed the transport crew, and Maxwell feigned an attack of the faints, swooning dramatically over the transport’s stubby grey-flecked snout. This was just too good to pass up, really it was.

“What, the all-knowing Master Chang is actually — really, truly, honest to hell actually — admitting that my fleabitten, irresponsible, useless ol’ man self just might’ve been right about something? Damn, I should stick my face out there to see if the sky turned green and purple paislies while flying robot pigs play hopscotch.”

“I won’t be the one to thaw you out if you do, Maxwell. Just a warning.”

Chang’s attitude was one of resigned annoyance as he waited for his one-time fellow pilot to get himself under control. Clearly some things never changed, including Maxwell’s admitted immaturity. Well, it was vaguely reassuring in its own way to see a bit of humour under the years of bitterness; he’d been starting to wonder, after the last request had been ignored — and the one before that — whether Maxwell had finally given in and would need to be dealt with before he compromised the project’s long-term goals. Despite his reputation for being as cold as his station’s environs, Chang would not and did not relish that possibility.

“Now, supposing that you’ve gotten your inappropriate hilarity out of your system for the time being, [follow me if you would, please](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/comixologist/2005538/121195/121195_original.png) —”

— a small snort from Maxwell at the polite request, and Chang hid a smile; he did enjoy tweaking the ‘priest’s’ expectations —

“—and I’ll show you where you can get rid of the arctic gear before you expire of heat prostration and clutter up my nice, orderly station with your carcass.”

-*-

It was much warmer in Master Chang’s private office. Maybe it was only the comparison with the sub-zero temperatures outside, but given the enthusiastically sprawling spider plants taking over one corner of said office Maxwell was grudgingly and humorously accepting of the notion that no, it was actually warm. He was as sprawling as the plants himself at the moment, slouched into an all-encompassing chair planted directly opposite Chang’s desk (he’d briefly considered putting his boots up on said burnished steel desk, then decided he’d like to keep his feet after all) and ruffling the ragged ends of his hair with one hand.

As Chang glowered at him from his own seat on the other side of the desk-cum-barrier, Maxwell offered his cheekiest smile. Hell no was he going to be making this easy for the man. Ha. … Well, maybe.

“Hand it over, Maxwell, so that we can get this underway. I assume you still have it.”

_Bingo. Well you certainly know how to get me actually paying attention, don’t you._

And there was no need to ask what ‘it’ was; with a twisted tilt to his mouth that was not quite a smirk — it was too bitter for that — Maxwell slipped a hand into a hidden seam in his lined cassock and felt carefully around until he located the false skin pocket blending seamlessly with his flesh. Moments later he was withdrawing his hand and placing a single optic chip onto the desktop with all the delicacy of handling fine porcelain. Slowly, reluctantly, he drew his hand back.

“… It’s not time, is it? I’d like to think I’d get a _little_ forewarning, at least.”

“No, it’s not. Not yet, at least; I assume you’ve been making use of your time in the gutters to stay on top of current events, Maxwell, so I won’t bother to belabour the issues of ‘Milliardo Peacecraft’ and other … complications. It may not be time yet, but may very well be in the very near future.

“It would be – inconvenient, to say the least, if this portion of the project failed due to negligence on our parts, don’t you agree?”

As he spoke Chang, equally delicately, picked up the shimmering wafer of silicon and slotted it carefully into the console that took up a good half of the desk space. His brows crimped as he studied the monitor’s readouts, and Maxwell leaned forward in alarm, pulse picking up speed. It couldn’t …

“The data’s still intact, right Chang? The damn thing never leaves me but hell, data’s just data and files corrupt just because they feel like it half the fucking time —”

“The contents are fine. I admit I had a moment of concern, but the chip is intact. Whatever else I could and do accuse you of, this is one mission you haven’t wavered on, Maxwell — _when_ you bother to respond to a contact.”

“ _Some_ of us have mouths to feed and debts to pay and can’t risk bringing down the wrath of the so-called Peacecrafts onto other people’s heads.”

Maxwell’s voice had gone flat and stony, prompting his conversation partner to lift a brow in mild surprise. But he waved away Chang’s unspoken question and pushed on with his own agitated monologue as if the words were desperate to escape while they could, and all the while his murky blue eyes stayed fixed on the console and the data it was quietly, passively confirming the integrity of.

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing about what ‘Milliardo Peacecraft’ is up to, and I’ve been hearing about ‘Zechs Merquise’ and the supposed Epyon that’s been spotted across half the damn planet. And I know there’s no way in hell that the pilot is the Zechs we knew unless he’s flipped his lid again — believe me, he doesn’t have any need for something like Epyon any longer. I _know_.”

Chang opened his mouth and was promptly cut off by an angry, abrupt gesture.

“No, I’m not explaining any more than you got out of me years ago, so don’t bother asking. It’s not him, can’t be him, end of story. I’d give a fuck of a lot to know _who_ it is, though, and I bet I’m not the only one wanting intel on the only Gundam on Mars —”

“Not the _only_ one —”

“Okay, fine, the only active and functional one that anyone at large knows about.”

Maxwell could have added one more machine to that short list, admittedly, but that would have required mentioning the Heaven after all; and, well, if Chang didn’t know details by now about that pure-shining behemoth, well his intel network needed some adjustments. That and Maxwell didn’t feel inclined to say anything about the pilot or his machine quite yet.

“Speaking of not quite active and functional mobile suits, Maxwell …”

“Not this shit again. I might as well be half again as old as the rest of you fuckers, damnit, and I have things I need to be doing —”

“They want to talk to you about that, W in particular.”

“Oh, I just bet they do. He’s a persuasive son of a bitch when he wants to be, he always was, but I’m not taking the bait Chang; it’s not happening, you got it?

“I’m doing my part playing the good shepherd until our frozen princess needs to have himself thawed out. That’s what I agreed to do, no more, no less.”

With a sigh that echoed through the office, Chang spread his hands in a gesture of apparent defeat. Maxwell did buy it for a moment — not with that glint in the other man’s eyes, half warning and half challenge — but was willing to take it as the compromise it was apparently meant to be. Luckily the conversation offered a convenient segue right back to an earlier concern; and, gratefully, he took it.

“How’s the ice princess holding up, anyway? No change in the coffin, Chang?”

“None. He’ll sleep on in it until he’s needed, and nothing other than our intervention is going to change that. What, do you think I’ve not been careful?”

_Pfft. Leave it to him to find an insult in a completely legitimate concern._

“Yeah, like you’d be happy with anything less than perfection with your own mission details. It’s not that, don’t be stupid; I just wonder sometimes if this was a good idea to begin with.

“I mean sure, the tech seems reliable enough and he agreed to the whole thing to begin with — hell, it’s probably better for the ornery bastard in the long run after everything that happened to him — but _fuck_ , man, look the two of us and tell me it’s not going to be rough when it’s time to wake up from that damn coffin and rejoin the land of the living, y’know?”

There was one heartbeat, then two, as Chang silently shifted his attention to his console and Maxwell ground his teeth, eyes riveted onto the spider plants in a futile bid to ward off wanting to throttle the Preventer Chief. But one more beat before his resolve broke Chang’s attention snapped back onto him. He held the optic chip in his own palm, held across the desk; as Maxwell scooped it up like a baby bird to hide away again in its hidden pocket, he lifted a brow again and sighed expansively.

“Don’t think that the same thoughts haven’t crossed my mind. It was the best choice he could make at the time, but time — and we, and the world, Mars and Earth both — have moved on without him. And so has the prince, and her family.

“Much as I hate to admit it twice in one conversation, Maxwell, you once again have a good point. But what can we do about it now? Not a damned thing.”

Chang’s expression grew thoughtful, his gaze sliding back to Maxwell.

“Do you want to see him? Evidence that he’s still there, intact, and not falling to pieces in an unmonitored state, and all that? No frost-bitten ‘corpsesicle’, as the youngsters so charmingly put it—?”

_What._

Maxwell’s jaw dropped, and a wickedly amused smile danced across Chang’s face. Oh, he was enjoying every last second of this, oh yes he was, subject be damned.

“I’m deadly serious, you realize. There are sensors and monitoring cameras lining the interior of the coffin for that exact purpose — which you should have known, unless the intervening years have completely rotted away the most useful portions of that head of yours – and I can access them from where we’re sitting. So then, shall I?”

What a question. Maxwell swallowed; it was, arguably, a violation of privacy of the worst order, but then since when did he care about delicacies like privacy? And it would be reassuring, at least, to know there was still a reason to be guarding a damn optical chip like it was his firstborn child — oh, irony there —

“… Do it. Show me he’s still in there.”

The wicked smile deepened into a knowing smirk, and Chang keyed in a complicated series of commands, ignoring the warning clarions from his console as he overrode the safeties on the coffin of the ‘Aurora Princess’. For a few seconds a view of the coffin itself, all sculpted icy wings and false death mask, filled the screen; then the view changed abruptly and in one smooth swift motion Chang rotated the monitor to face the still stunned Maxwell.

“Well, there he is. Not much to look at, I will admit, but good enough to show more than bone and scrap, I should expect. Well? Is that what you wanted? Are you satisfied with the results of our work so far?”

There, on the monitor; there he was. The so-called Aurora Princess, Wing Zero’s pilot counterpart, terrorist and unspoken hero, Heero Yuy. If Maxwell ignored the unearthly pallor of the inert figure in the featureless black bodysuit which the microcameras were slowly panning over, he could almost believe Yuy was only sleeping — and likely to wake up irritable and ready to break skulls over being recorded in his sleep.

_Except he’s not waking up again, ever, unless and until we let him. Assuming this even works. Fuck, he might wind up some kind of zombie, or something._

_Damnit, Heero, why couldn’t you pick the fucking easy route for once?_

There was no answer, of course, from the sleeper even if he could have somehow heard Maxwell’s agitated thoughts. Seeing no obvious sign of questions forthcoming, Chang righted the monitor and shut down the active video transmissions with a shrug and a few deft keystrokes.

“Well, there you have it. If the cryo had failed he would hardly be looking so good, to say the least, so you can put your mind at ease on that point.

“Since you insist on being stubborn about taking on a more active role in the extended project, I would say that this meeting has served its purpose — but don’t expect the other two to give up quite so easily.”

Maxwell shot a dirty glance back at the reminder of the other half of his usual check-in. Oh, how he wanted to take that expression off of Chang’s face, preferably with a good right hook.

“They have to find me first. I don’t keep friendly terms with everyone, you know, and some folks’re too damn weird for me — and they top the list. He’s got _strange_ , Chang.”

“Oh, they’ll find you if they really want to — W will — precisely because of that strangeness. He’s been practicing, or so I’ve heard, and making a few tests here and there; there have been a few interesting developments over the last years that you’ve missed that just may make or break the mobile suit project —”

“Stop bring cryptic, Chang, you aren’t any fucking good at it. Just spit it out.”

“The good Professor has been working on that so-called ‘space heart’ of his, or however he prefers to refer to it these days. If — when, I should say — you encounter each other, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Difficult to explain, but you know when you happen to be faced with it.”

“Oh, that was just so helpful. Okay, okay, I’ll keep an eye out for the freakshow. My answer still isn’t changing. Anything else, or should I get the show on the road?”

-*-

‘Anything else’ turned out to be — surprise of surprises — a stopover for the next day, supposedly in order to schedule in the next transport south without being too obvious. Maxwell suspected the _real_ reason was Chang humoring his old bones (which was vaguely insulting, vaguely flattering) but shamelessly took advantage of the base facilities to rest and relax in any case. The brief glance he’d gotten of the pale, draconian behemoth Chang had ensconced in its own private hangar did nothing but convince him of the sensibility of his decision: he was not getting in a damn mobile suit again. He was already doing enough, and the rest was not his problem any longer.

He’d chosen to be dropped off by the transport in Aquitaine, a bustling nexus of trade, political maneuvering and general scum and villainy some three days ride away from Schbeiker Orphanage, reasoning that the extra distance would ward off that much more of a connection being drawn between the obviously military caravan (and its unlikely passenger) and said orphanage.

More importantly, he’d have the opportunity to put an ear to the ground and hear what there was to hear by way of rumours and scuttlebutt. Bounties weren’t going to just fall into his lap, after all — and he was still looking to scrape up anything he could about Cyrene and his possible whereabouts. There was no way Cyrene had anything to do with the damned Epyon, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t up to _something_ … And anyway, he’d promised the rugrat he’d at least try.

-*-

_Well, this should be promising — and if not, well a drink never hurt no one —_

The old-fashioned ear to the ground had turned up nothing of interest — a few minor postings, hardly worth the effort to bring them in — and Maxwell had been about to give up for the evening and find a hostel to crash in when his earpiece had crackled with a sudden flurry of activity over the police frequencies: down towards the Crescent a racket was ramping up, taking up the attention of no less than three squads in full gear. Half the bars of Crescent Row had turned out to watch the scuffle between the officers and the instigator, a male with long pale hair and uncanny aim with a rifle —

_Unless he’s grown his hair, it’s not him. Sounds like that fucker Rider though, and I’ll take that one just as fast thanks — last thing I need is losing his bounty to a fucking cop —!_

Stomping on the accelerator, Maxwell hunkered low over the bike’s chassis and tore down the streets towards Crescent and the cacophony all but flattened him before he managed to enter the fray. Ignoring the furious bellowing of the officers he skidded his lady under (and through) the hastily erected barricades and came to a hard stop, every last joint complaining as his rear wheel fishtailed wildly.

There he was, the bastard, grinning like a damn fool as he dove from the roof of a squadcar in a hail of bullets: that bastard Rider was _playing_ with them, shrugging off a direct shot as if it were nothing — body armour under the tatty duster? — and volleying back with precisely placed shots that belied the lazy, almost childish grin on his hollow-cheeked face. He was enjoying himself, the son of a bitch; the entire confrontation was clearly nothing but a source of entertainment for the man.

_Stupid fucking grandstanding idiot what the fuck does he think he is anyway – hold that pose, asshole, I’m gonna wipe that grin right off your face in twenty —_

Maxwell leaped from his bike, drawing the attention of both Rider and the police as the tails of his cassock whipped around him — and he came down with both pistols drawn, shots ringing out like an announcement of his arrival, before he touched down on the dusty, rusty earth. One officer stepped towards him warningly only to be warned off in turn by her partner, who gestured towards Maxwell’s abandoned bike and the red and blue beacons flashing angrily; and, much as the cops didn’t like it, the broadcast coming over their tacnet was more than clear. No civilian here, but a bounty hunter – distasteful, maybe, but within his rights to get his head shot off for cash. As one the squads fell back and began to concentrate on crowd control instead of dealing with Rider directly, leaving Maxwell to try whatever stunts he had up his sleeve.

Unperturbed by the bullets that whirred past his head, Rider weaved sidewise and returned Maxwell’s volley, forcing the priest to drop and dodge in a swirl of dust, a bullet skimming close enough to rake a hair-thin line of crimson across Maxwell’s cheek. Spitting and swearing Maxwell surged back to his feet in an eyeblink and popped off a series of four shots at his target’s feet, pressing him back towards the shattered façade of a patio bar — the Dead Duck, he noted somewhere in the back of his mind; oh irony — as he moved slowly closer with every bullet fired. Still laughing, grin edged with a crazed sort of euphoria, Rider obligingly backed up into the wreckage of the patio … and never once did his glassy stare leave Maxwell’s face. Rather, he spit a bit of bloody froth, coughed, laughed and lifted his rifle to fire again.

“You aren’t any fun at all you know, Mister Priest. I’m just here to have to some fun, you know, just out to enjoy myself a little while I have the chance, and what’s wrong with that I ask you? I wasn’t hurting anything but a little bit of glass and booze before they got here to ruin everything for me — you going to try to make me confess, Mister Priest?

“Mister Reaper in a black robe, Father Death who runs and hides but never lies, oh how I missed you so you know —”

The words cut like a knife, burned like a beam sabre, how did he know how did he _know_ — but there was a wild and maddened recognition in the pale eyes; the pale blue eyes — pale green? — that had riveted onto him like two burning pits of hellfire.

_Who the hell is this son of a bitch anyway?!_

Maxwell bit off a curse and brought his off-hand pistol up warningly, keeping his good hand low and out of obvious sight. Whoever or whatever Rider was, he sure as hell wasn’t matching the bounty description — this bastard was a raving lunatic, not a troublemaker.

_A lunatic who knows too much, knows me somehow, I can tell he does, I don’t know why …_

“Pay attention, Father Death!”

Rider barked once, the words clipped and rough; tossed the rifle aside as useless suddenly, and Maxwell took the chance to fire. There was a fountain of red … and then the world erupted in fire, a burning agony that tore through the point of his shoulder and clean down his arm. His vision swam, filled with pale seafoam eyes and a rictus grin; dimly he heard whispered words he couldn’t make out, even more dimly heard the sound of smashing glass and an engine roaring to life.

Then the darkness ate him alive.

-*-

Awareness filtered back in slowly, painfully slowly; bits and pieces of hazy presences in the dark, a sense of having been moved, a lessening of pain, and a maddeningly familiar voice that was chuckling over old men pushing themselves too far. Not the only familiar voice in recent memory, no, but it was the only one still present — who had the second belonged to? — and that, in and of itself, seemed strange in a disconnected sort of way as he drifted on the edge of that enveloping dark.

The second time he heard that voice, it shot through him like lightning.

“You —!”

That insufferable, appearing-disappearing, untrackable son of a bitch —

“Don’t get yourself excited, Maxwell, it’s not good for you right now. Else you’ll burn off the medication which would be less than pleasant at the moment.

“Do you always confront lunatics head on like that in this day and age?”

Ignoring the lightly humorous tone as well as the question, Maxwell blearily eased open his eyes and risked a quick glance around himself. Hospital bed — joy of joys — hospital scrubs. IV line and even more unpleasant tubing, even more joyous. Left arm and shoulder a mass of dressings and dull agony. And there — the bastard — sitting in a chair across the small room from his bed, knee on knee, was the other object of his search, and Maxwell had no doubt the eyes behind those concealing glasses were wickedly amused at his predicament.

The bastard.

“Cyrene, I’m going to fucking strangle you I swear to —”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to thank me for scraping you off the street and into medical care before the police could intervene, and once you’ve patched yourself up and finished your job you’re going to deliver a message for my daughter. Somehow I don’t think that you would mind that terribly much, given what I’ve gotten whispers concerning.”

A ghost of a smile, almost regretful, played across the blond man’s face for a moment.

“And now you’re going to go back to sleep, Father Maxwell, so that I can take my leave without you adding too many complications to my own order of business. I’ll leave the message with the hospital staff; they already know to expect it.

“Try not to get yourself killed before your time, if you could? Events haven’t quite finished playing themselves out — and I may need a character witness of my own by the time they have.”

Before he had finished speaking, he’d been halfway to the door; before the door closed behind him the darkness was swimming back into Maxwell’s vision and pulling him gently under.

_Damnit you bastard, what did you do …_

-*-

By the time Maxwell woke again, and was aware of the fact, a good day had passed — and the staff, it seemed, had no intention of allowing him to escape without at least another few days of observation, which was all fine and good and it was nice to see professionals so pleased to do their job of being concerned for his well-being and all that, but _damnit_ he needed to get moving. At least he’d managed to cadge access to a phone (a much more reasonable request than being released, it seemed) and, after an extended bout of being chewed out by the good Sister, he succeeded in conveying the bare details of the situation (“Met the family friend, got caught up in a scuffle, hospital is twitchy and wants to watch me for a few days, don’t worry I’m still headed homeward, I’ll have news when I get there, no I’m not wandering off” — all the usual, just with a touch more honesty than usual).

Wind, naturally, had been as good as his word; a sealed envelope — how quaint — had been brought to his room when he inquired after messages, and he’d even had to sign for it. Better yet, a second signature, this time on a digital document, recovered for him his pistols, his bike and his gear, all currently in storage and waiting on his release. It seemed Wind really had covered all the bases.

_Or he’s up to something, the clever bastard. Whatever, I’ll take all the luck I can stumble across — and I have some news for Mister Crankypants at least. Might even keep the kid from bitching for a week or two._

With little to do other than stare at the numbingly boring broadcasts on the flatvid or sleep his life away (which he was already doing more than enough, if you asked him), Maxwell turned his impromptu ‘vacation’ towards chewing over recent events.

Everything had been going smoothly enough until he reached Aquitaine. The flight and then overland transport north hadn’t even encountered overly miserable weather, and Chang hadn’t been any more abrasive than usual. The chip was intact — ditto Heero, which had been a good (if creepy) thing to confirm — and Chang’s personal hydra-headed monstrosity was admittedly impressive. The trip back down had been fine. But events in the damn city itself, oh sweet merciful fuck what the hell _was_ all that …

_Who the hell is this Rider asshole that he knows to use that catchphrase?_

_It was like he recognized me or something, I’m sure he did, and I know damn well I’ve never tangled with him before this. What the ever-loving hell was that anyway._

_Crazy fucker, next time I’m just unloading in his face, wipe that grin off permanently —_

There had been something about Rider’s eyes. Something about his eyes, and that soft almost singsong voice that rankled with familiarity, the way he’d felt a crawling itch behind his eyes as they stared each other down and Rider had called him out. But whatever it was, it was as if the answer lay locked behind an invisible wall in his head; maybe it was the painkillers he was jacked up on, tripping him up, but he just couldn’t pin any of it down.

-*-

By the time he was finally permitted to sign himself out Maxwell still hadn’t worked out the answer to the question of Dion Rider and perforce had chosen to push the whole issue out of mind for the time being. Either he’d work it out or not, and either way Rider was as good as dead. _After_ he stopped over at the orphanage for a nice long time, before he was hung by a furious Hilde. That was the useful part of getting ripped open, he supposed, seeing as it was going to be hard enough to handle the bike with a busted arm (the mental image of the hospital staff having fits brought an evil little smile to his face), and never mind trying to use a gun with that hand. And he didn’t like to go into a shitstorm like dealing with that freak without being able to field both pistols.

But all that was in the future. In the present, furnished with prescription painkillers (which he had no intention of taking), his bike (with saddleboxes untampered with; truly shocking, that was) and his sidearms, it was time to head right back to Crescent Row and make himself at home in the first available pub that didn’t show scars from the firefight. After all that wasted time in traction, he needed a goddamn drink.

-*-

Hunkered over the weathered bartop, counting the scratches in the polish, Maxwell was already feeling a sense of déjà vu even before a pair of shadows fell over his shoulders. There was just something about being in yet another dusty, cluttered tavern with half the locals staring and the other half avoiding you, something amusingly, comfortably familiar; so when the bar went silent a split-second before the shadows fell, he was already reaching for a gun with his good hand.

“I don’t think you’ll really be needing that, Father. We haven’t upset you _that_ badly recently, have we?”

The voice, still possessing an oddly young note, registered just as he was whirling to level the pistol at the speaker’s head. Sea-blue eyes, fey and amused, gazed back calmly under a corona of pale hair gone stark white, and before he could lower the gun a sinewy hand in a dust-black sleeve reached in from his right and pushed it pointedly downwards. He glanced sidewise, caught the dead-eyed glint of green under dark hair, and didn’t bother to fight the motion.

“Might as well _borrow_ it, Barton, if you’re going to get that worked up about a perfectly normal response to being loomed over. Fucking hell.”

“Only you would consider that response ‘normal’, Maxwell.”

The retort was measured, uninflected; Maxwell expected nothing else, really, from the taciturn ‘Doktor T’. Ignoring the taller man, he returned his attention to the inquisitive ‘Professor W’ and tried to keep the smirk off his face that was threatening in the face of Winner’s amused little answering shrug. His eyes itched annoyingly, same as usual; it was the same thing over and over with these two …

_… Wait one goddamned minute …_

That prickle. He’d known he knew that itch, those odd blue eyes — what the _fuck_ —

The pistol came up again, snake-strike fast. Instantly Barton had his hand clamped around Maxwell’s wrist, fingertips digging into tendons; he ignored the jolt of agony and kept his arm — and weapon — steady as a trickle of surprise that was not his own flickered across his awareness and made him see red. God _fucking_ damnit he should have known, he should have known, it’s not like it’s fucking _normal_ —

Snarling, he stared straight down the sight into the unblinking sea-grey, sea-blue eyes.

“Get out of my head before I ventilate yours. That’s not a warning, that’s a promise. _Now_.”

Behind him, Maxwell could hear the bartender’s panicked stammering, then heard Barton’s hissed warning, and ignored them both. Winner hardly seemed to breathe, an apparition in grey and white. He snarled again.

“You heard me. _Now_ I get what Chang was being cryptic as fucking usual about.

“Drop it or it’s over. Now what the fuck do you have to do with that fucking psychopath Rider, and don’t try to give me ‘nothing’ as an answer because you know and I know that’s a fucking lie, ‘Professor’ —”

Like a puppet whose strings were cut, Winner seemed to collapse in on himself. A gesture, almost defeated in its way, from him prompted the release of Maxwell’s wrist; a heartbeat later the itch in his head was gone and Maxwell grudgingly lowered his pistol once again. With the gun now out of his line of sight, Winner lifted a shaking hand to his face in an odd motion somewhere between rubbing at his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I — no, let me try again. I should have realized you’d have gotten sensitized after everything that we’ve gone through in both recent and distant past, Father, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.

“It-Nashar — Rider, Dion Rider — yes, I think we need to talk. I can see we need to talk, and not only about wizards and fair maidens and princesses like I’d planned for. I’m really, really sorry.

“Can we find a spot a little more private, though, before the nice gentleman behind you loses too many more patrons?”

Somehow Maxwell managed to suppress the urge to facepalm, possibly with the damned pistol. Winner never changed.

-*-

“Rider — I suppose I should be using that name, if that’s what he’s chosen — is, or was, something of a mistake on my part, you see …”

A good hour and two different attempts at explanation later, in a private dining room tucked in an upscale restaurant Maxwell would never have darkened the door of in a thousand lifetimes, and the good Father was still more than willing to say that no, he did not fucking ‘see’ at all. Winner was being vague as all hell, which never helped, and Barton had contributed nothing but the occasional knowing little smile, which together left the conversation making about as much sense to Maxwell as a mime convention. With his impatience growing after every word, he knocked back another drink and groaned.

“No, I don’t damned see. I can’t even tell if this guy is your kid — which I thought was impossible, by the way, so I’m impressed if that’s the right guess oh and by the way, who’s the mother — or some brother or cousin you never bothered to mention before.”

“Can we simply say ‘relation’ and leave it at that, Father? It’s … probably for the best if we do.”

Winner’s expression was both pained and resigned as the words reluctantly escaped. Saluting with his glass, Maxwell shrugged. Whatever. It was suspicious as all hell, but whatever.

“I don’t really care what you call him as long as you admit he’s like you, whatever _that_ is.”

“Yes. And it’s gone very poorly for him. That’s my mistake and my responsibility, I should have been more …”

“Shut it, Winner, I’m not here to hear you beat yourself up. I’m taking that particular problem off your hands anyway, because I’m going to kill the son of a bitch before he gets even more of a price on his head.

“I know there’s something you aren’t coming out and telling me, but frankly I don’t give a fuck. Rider’s a goddamn menace and he’s going to die since apparently you haven’t bothered to clean up your mess, whatever the hell it is.”

Winner fell silent, looking anywhere but at the angry Maxwell, and the good Father squelched down hard on the pang of guilt blossoming at the sight of the expression on the other man’s face. Rider was obviously an emotional issue of _some_ kind here; but, well, the bastard had a price on his head for a reason, damnit.

“Better I deal with it than you, whatever the problem is. You never did cope with people getting a bad case of dead.”

“It is hardly as if you have a choice in the long run, Maxwell. Now that he’s read you, he’ll hunt you down where you live as likely as not. He finds the chosen ground of his target and works outward.”

The sudden remark from Barton caught him off-guard, and he snorted to cover his surprise.

“And what do _you_ know about this freak?”

“I know enough. More than yourself.”

“Oh, that’s fucking helpful —”

“The way you continue to be helpful by rejecting Warlock.”

_Not this shit again._

Not that he was _surprised_ that the topic finally reared its ugly head — it was damn well the only reason the two ‘researchers’ even looked for him, and Winner had already all but admitted it earlier — but the timing, the _timing_ couldn’t have been worse if Barton had tried. Somehow Maxwell managed to ignore the burning impulse to wrap his hands around that thin throat and squeeze the breath out of it; instead, he settled for a glare that could etch glass.

“Y’know, asshole, even when you had the holes in your head I don’t remember you being this fucking stupid. Stubborn, sure, but not fucking stupid.”

Barton blinked twice, nonplussed, and Maxwell kept right on going over the sound of the other half of the tag team starting to draw breath to argue. Not this time, assholes.

“No, Winner, you fuck off, shut up and listen to _me_ for once —”

— and Maxwell’s hand shoved in his face cut off anything Winner could have said before he’d started —

“—and you too, Barton, because this is the last goddamn time I’m saying this. Now, take a look at me, you stubborn prick. Some of us haven’t been lucky enough to dodge that so-called ‘disease’, and we don’t get to frolic in expensive biomed colonies to get our sick taken care of either.”

Maxwell lifted the arm Barton had seized back in the pub, holding it up as if it were an unattached object on display; Barton’s green eyes regarded him clinically, and as his audience made no response Maxwell snorted and continued on with his rant. It figured.

“You, you fucker, could have snapped my wrist like a twig and I fucking well know you know that. If you didn’t before, you damn well know now. And you’re still trying to throw me into a cockpit? Are you fucking _insane_? I wouldn’t last ten minutes out there before the g-forces crushed me like a goddamn bug. What would be the fucking point, ‘Doktor’, unless the point is secretly that you assholes want me dead for some bizarre mindjacking lunatic reason?

“Oh and speaking of dead, if I find out you’re the one who knocked me out cold for my ‘visitor’ while I was in traction, Winner, I will kick you so far up …”

“… I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’d only just finished, ah, following your trace when we found you holding up that bar — I don’t know any details about your hospital stay.”

The blue eyes softened, and Maxwell knew what he next volley was likely to be. Chang had all but told him to expect it, after all. Well, they weren’t getting any satisfaction on that score either –

“If you’re about to mention Duo, save your breath. I’m not sending him off as some kind of sacrificial goat for the harebrained schemes you and the Preventers have up your sleeves; fuck, you’d swear we named the kid Isaac the way you keep pushing the fucking point.”

“But if he’s anything like you, he’d be a natural in a mobile suit —”

“He’s just like me, the ornery little bastard, and that’s _my_ point. I’m not putting him through what I went through, I’m a fucking dysfunctional wreck — not like you two are normal, or Chang, and we won’t even talk about the Princess — and I’m not turning him into a carbon copy of me.

“Maybe you can’t get that. It’s not like _you’re_ ever breeding, are you Winner?”

The barb struck home, Maxwell regretting it as soon as he heard the quick intake of breath. Throwing his hands up (with a scowl of pain as his mangled arm bitched at the sudden movement), he heaved a sigh and promptly gave over as Barton watched him from over the lip of his glass and Winner looked everywhere but at him. Damn it.

“Okay, okay, I guess that was a low blow given the family situation and the genetic mess and L4 and all that shit. But I still have a point, damnit! You _don’t_ know what it’s like. I sure as hell didn’t expect to actually give a damn.”

“Aren’t you still making a choice for him, only selecting ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’?”

Barton again, slipping in a quiet interjection like a knife in the ribs; but the good Father was ready for the bait this time and was not about to fall for it.

“Until he has enough in his thick skull to make a sane decision? Damn right I am. You realize Schbeiker Orphanage is on the outskirts of town in the middle of fucking nowhere politically speaking, right? Well-informed is not how I’d be describing the average six-year-old-thirteen-year-old from our parts. Besides —”

— a wicked gleam dawned in his eyes —

“— he’s more interested in messing with my bike. Need any more engineers?”

With that flip comment Maxwell broke off the conversation and topped off his drink, nursing it silently in a sudden change of mood that left the other two blinking at each other in mild bemusement. He let them stew for a bit before finally sighing into his drink.

“Look, I’m days late getting back on the one time I was making an actual effort to keep a promise. I need to check on the orphanage and the kids — now more than ever, given your dancing and hinting at that fucking nutjob turning up to cause hell — and I have a letter I need to deliver besides.

“Go talk to Chang, he’s ready to fight; hell, he’d got his machine ready to go already, he’s long ahead of you two. If I hear anything through the gutter vine I’ll get in contact with you — I know about that damn Epyon, and I want to know what the hell’s going on there, I’m willing to bet you’re the same — and I’ll even keep you updated on whatever happens with that fucker Rider, since he’s a concern of yours. But right now, that’s all I’m willing to do.”

Looking like he was feeling greatly daring, Winner reached over to place a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder. His face radiated concern, and not a little bit of guilt; a frisson of an echo of the same danced through Maxwell’s mind with the faintest of itches lingering in its wake. This time he decided to let the projection pass.

“Father — Duo — you’re right, and I’m sorry. I’m not going to lie and say we don’t want you back, but we’ve not been being entirely fair and that’s true. You’re already going out of your way with the Aurora project …

“We’re still going to go ahead with the Warlock, no matter what happens or who pilots him … you know it’s a similar design, right …?”

Maxwell rolled his eyes so far he was sure he could hear them squeak in their sockets.

“I don’t have a lockdown on giant scythe-wielding mobile suits, y’know. The crazy old coot had that designed looong before I got myself roped into part of the plan. I don’t _care_ , man, do whatever you want with it — no skin off my nose.

“Now I have to get going while there’s still sun, get a few hours on the road. See you around — and don’t do anything stupid.”

-*-

_Goddamn he’s a talker. Forgot just how persuasive he could be — and no fucking wonder._

_But I’ve got places to be and my own messes to deal with, too bad —_

Ruminations, bitter and otherwise, made for a good enough distraction over the two days hard riding (it should have been three, but he hardly bothered to stop and nap or charge power cells) between Aquitaine and the orphanage. Maxwell was determined to make up for the time lost one way or another, and not only to avoid that bitching-out from Hilde; the more he could shave off of the chance of Rider popping up while he was absent the happier he was going to be.

Finally, limping along as the lady complained bitterly with a warning grinding in her power plant that he’d pushed just a little too far, he same to a rickety halt barely ten feet away from the orphanage’s front porch. Feeling even older than usual he slowly dismounted from the bike, injured arm aflame with pain (and probably oozing at the least, he figured), and hobbled gracelessly towards the door. At least it was late enough in the evening that the rugrats would long since be in bed for the night —

As he reached for the doorknob it swung open beneath his hand and two angry midnight eyes fixed onto his own a split second before Duo landed a fist square in his gut. Maxwell staggered backwards, grabbed for the porch rail — with his bad hand — spit and swore a blue streak, and glared up at the boy through pain-tears and an angry haze. Duo, for his part, was rearing back to take a second swing, flushed with the kind of outrage only an angry youngster was capable of sustaining.

“You said you were coming right back, you stupid lying useless old —”

“I have a letter for you. From Naina.”

“What —?”

Duo froze mid-swing, eyes wide with surprise, and Maxwell couldn’t help but chuckle at the kid through his wheezing attempts to get his wind back. It was really kind of adorable of the vicious little monster — oh yeah, did he ever take after his father …

Straightening slowly, he took a deep if shaky breath, shook off the last few stars he was seeing and gestured back towards the softly pinging bike and its cargo, still locked tight in the saddleboxes.

“Straight from her father’s hands to mine, more or less. Got no idea what’s in it, either.

“I’ll tell you what, kid, leave off using me as a punching bag for a bit and get my gear inside and you can read whatever it is as soon as the bike’s in the garage; it’s in the left side saddlebox, inside lining on the rear. Have at it. Just get inside first!”

Duo needed no further encouragement, nearly knocking Maxwell off his feet in his dash towards the bike and its precious contents. With another rasping chuckle Maxwell turned on one heel and was about to leave when a prickle of unease crept down his spine. Glancing back, he whistled sharply and ignored Duo’s dirty look as he grudgingly looked up from the saddlebox, jerking his thumb towards the tiny garage attached to the main building.

“I’m not kidding, kid, get it and you inside first. Yes there’s a reason, no I’m not telling you what it is. Just do it.”

Something in his tone pierced through Duo’s perpetual contrariness; wary and a little uneasy now, he nodded once — without any backtalk, surely a minor miracle — and started to wheel the bike garage-ward. Appeased, Maxwell lurked just long enough to be certain Duo was getting under cover and then finally dragged himself inside.

-*-

_If that fucker doesn’t get me the paranoia probably will._

_I don’t care right now._

“… You’re lucky you still _have_ your arm, you know. Between the actual maiming and this stupid stunt …”

Hilde shook her head, setting the precision forceps down on the liberally blood-speckled tabletop. That had been too many sutures to replace for her liking, and damned too close for comfort. If Maxwell had popped them all open instead of the handful she’d tackled before he’d made it back, he’d have …

The patient sighed ruefully, watching her every movement like a wary crow.

“I see your hands clenching. Come on, wasn’t getting hammered on by the rugrat enough for today? And believe me, I hardly _planned_ to get knifed by a raving lunatic who knows more than he should and — I’m assuming, and I think it’s a damn good assumption considering how my surprise ambush conversation with the mad scientists played out — is probably some kind of weird psychic space heart whackjob. Like Winner, only a different kind of crazy …”

Hilde’s open palm smacking the tabletop made him jump and go silent.

“You’re rambling. What I should be doing is knocking you out and letting you rot, not humouring you while you spin conspiracy theories. Did you get anything _useful_ out of this little escapade at all, or was it entirely this botched bounty?”

From the warning look in her dark eyes as she cleaned away the refuse from the table, Maxwell could tell she meant business with that last pointed comment. Luckily for him he had, so far as he was concerned, the perfect answer, and he offered it up with cheeky aplomb that belied the pain and stress he was under. ‘Never tell a lie’, after all, and most especially not right now —

“The grizzled old master — you know exactly who I mean — checked the data and it came up clean, same old same old. Got a peek at the princess besides —”

— here he grinned at Hilde’s sudden intake of breath, with a bit of rueful sympathy creeping into his rakish expression —

“—and said princess looks to be weathering the enchanted sleep pretty damn well. The cranky bastard’s also got himself a huge white dragon of his own, ready and waiting to go —”

“He’s trying to convince you to join them again, isn’t he. That’s what the other two were fishing for as well. Cough it up, ‘Father’, it’s not as if it’d be anything new …”

Maxwell rubbed at his face, not at all surprised that Hilde decided to cut straight to the heart of the matter.

“Pretty much, and I told them to shove it. I’m in no shape for it, not interested in it, and Duo —”

The door rattled open.

“What about me, old man?”

-*-

“… You, kid, need to learn to keep your face out of other people’s business.”

If Maxwell had planned to add to the dry drawl, he lost any chance the moment he’d paused to scrub at his face. Duo spit a defiant curse at him and plunged into the cramped office, dodging Hilde’s grab at his arm and coming to a halt nearly nose to nose with his father. The smile that flickered across Maxwell’s face was wry, and bitter; but despite the tension in the air Hilde suspected she saw a gleam of wicked pride in the good Father’s shadowed eyes.

A silent quirk of one brow was the only ‘question’ she made — answered by a barely noticeable tilt of Maxwell’s head — and, aggravated by the silence, Duo slammed a fist into the tabletop that sent papers, coffee mugs and the now-closed medikit scattering to the winds.

“Stop acting like I’m not here! You don’t get to decide what I’m doing with my life, old man, and not you either Sister — you think I don’t know something’s going on? Even when you start hiding even _more_ stuff than _usual_ and you think I don’t notice when you do it?”

_... Clever kid. Mouthy, not like that’s anything new, but still thinking._

_Well, Hilde, you can break bones for it later but I feel like making a roll of the dice._

Ignoring how his arm promptly blossomed into a cacophony of pain Maxwell tucked both hands nonchalantly behind his head, hooked one foot up onto the other knee — truly the image of unruffled serenity — and leaned back in his chair until the spring creaked in protest. Hilde opened her mouth, ready to make her own protest, and then the steady rhythm of Maxwell’s swinging foot caught her attention. Old code, older than dirt, in the slow-fast swings: “Cyrene”. “Naina”. Intrigued, she re-took a seat in her own chair and settled back to watch how the little showdown would play out.

Relaxing further after this positive sign, Maxwell favoured his son with his best rakehell smile.

“Fine. Here it is then, kid: a few old pals of mine want me to be shooting folks for them, not for me and not to clear out the scum and troublemakers crawling across the planet. More to the point, to do this they want me to use certain means that give me the ability to kill a hell of a lot more people at once, and dish out a hell of a lot of collateral damage. Frankly, I’m too damn old to be flying around in one of those deathtraps any longer.

“The stubborn bastards don’t like to take no for an answer, naturally, and since they can’t get me they’re angling to have your old man turn you into a little carbon copy of him.”

Duo’s eyes glinted, his entire posture screaming his readiness for a fight, hands clenched.

“Just say ‘mobile suit’ and get it over with, you stupid old goat. That’s what you’re _really_ talking about. And I want to do it, and you can’t stop me if I decide to. So you can bite me, old man, because I say I’m doing it.”

“Duo —”

“Shut up! Naina wrote the same thing you and Sister were talking about before, something called Epyon and that it’s get something to do with her father and that giant suit he came in when the mercs tried to kidnap her. She’s going to fly her own suit. I want to do the same thing —”

— his eyes flashed —

“—because those bastards were _bastards_ and that’s why you killed them right there in the yard, isn’t it old man? Why can’t I make the same choice? It’s _my_ life, not yours.”

“Duo, listen to me please. This is not a game, or something you can change your mind about if you don’t like their terms, or how their plans are going to work out.”

Hilde shook her head, reaching across the table to toy with the tip of Duo’s braid (much to his annoyance) and tapping his arm lightly with it. Maxwell chose to stay quiet, watching this exchange with shadowed eyes as he sipped what was left of his coffee.

“Father Maxwell makes stupid decisions — believe me, I know more about those firsthand than anyone should have to — but this is something we’re in agreement over. I’ve insisted on this decision, in fact.

“No one needs to be pulled into that kind of miserable life when they have a chance to do something else.”

Jerking away from contact with her, Duo started to swear. That was enough. Maxwell heaved himself upright again, all trace of laziness evaporating. Hands planted on Duo’s shoulder, he caught the boy’s gaze, held it with his own, and when he finally spoke his voice all but echoed like the grave.

“Listen. Listen good. Don’t go shooting off your mouth about this kind of shit because you got a chip on your shoulder over me, got it? Sister is right, this isn’t a game. It’s _never_ been a game. This kind of thing, it isn’t something that just washes off a body. I fucked myself over and that's the bed I have to lie in now, because of choices _I_ made. I wouldn’t take it back if I had the chance — I saw that look, Sister, leave off — but I don’t wish it on anyone else, least of all you, and I think Naina’s parents are making a fucking mistake.

“You don’t know how the world can chew you up and spit you out, kid, and if I have my way you’re never gonna need to. Not like that.

“But you’re right, it’s your choice. So when you think you can kill for a damn good reason — if you prove it to me — then we’ll talk.”

Speech now over, Maxwell slumped back into the chair, massaging his arm. Looking for support — or maybe just an answer — Duo glanced nervously towards Hilde, who only shook her head.

“It’s getting late, Duo, and the others are going to wonder what’s wrong if I let you sleep in. Go to bed. We’ll talk about this later.”

-*-

Sleep, as it turned out, was something that Father Maxwell did not have the luxury of. He and Hilde had spatted over his revelation of sorts to Duo for hours after the kid had slunk away to bed; ultimately, she had slugged him in the shoulder less likely to bleed and stalked away to her bedroom, leaving him alone in the dim office nursing cold coffee and a bad temper.

A pale spot of light flickered across the little window suddenly, broken up by the heavy drapes, and he glanced at the clock; the passing of the transport haulers on the way into town, just like clockwork.

_It must be nice to have such boring, predictable lives._

_I’d go stir-crazy inside of a week —!!_

A prickle raced down his spine that soon erupted into a torrent, a crawling scratch dug in behind his eyes and washing down his spine like acid, making the itch he’d felt in Aquitaine feel like the brush of a feather in comparison. As the surge of foreign hate and bloodlust faded somewhat, replaced by his own cold fear, Maxwell launched himself out of his seat and dashed into the hallway, groping for his pistols. Damnit, damnit damnit damnit — this was not happening, it _could not_ be happening, the kids, fuck, what if that fucker went after —

A single shot from a rifle’s barrel rang through the air outside, echoed through the walls, and the entire building erupted in panicked screams. Maxwell, heading for the stairwell to the common room, was about to launch himself downstairs when Hilde’s bark from behind him brought him up short.

“What are you _doing_ — what’s going on, Duo —”

Robe hauled gracelessly over her sleepwear, Hilde was packing a pistol of her own ( _‘so she kept one around after all; I knew she would’_ , he thought irrelevantly) and looked ready to chew up swords and spit out tacknails, which was all well and good — but there was also an eruption of kiddies milling about and screaming, and before either could so much as twitch they were latched onto by panicking children. Hilde looked to Maxwell, shook her head, and stowed the handgun into the pocket of her robe. Priorities.

“I’m going to get the kids out of here, don’t you do anything stupid. Does this have anything to do with that ‘scuffle’ of yours? You say yes, I’m going to kill you when this is over —”

The response was humourless and grim, Maxwell testing his off-hand and its ability to actually hold and lift a gun. Two of the munchkins — twin girls, no more than three — saw the pistol and ran to hide behind Hilde, and he smothered a wince of guilt.

“It does. The charming Professor — and his partner in crime, probably — are mixed in too, but I didn’t get to explain because of a braided gatecrasher. This one’s bad news, Sister.”

“Don’t think you’re getting out of an explanation later, Father. Not this time.”

He was already halfway down the stairs, a grim figure in black death, before he answered without a backwards glance.

“I’m not about to lie; like I said, this one’s bad news. Later. I promise. Gotta go.”

And he was promptly out of sight, leaving Hilde to herd a gaggle of terrified children towards the rear stairwell and the garage tunnel even as a second shot rang across the yard and a haunting singsong voice drifted through an open window, calling on Father Death to come and play …

-*-

_You creepy, creepy fucker. I don’t care who you are, or what your fucking problem is, you come around here and threaten the kids and I swear this time I’m killing you slow and painful, you son of a bitch …_

The words were a burning litany in his head, a red hint that fogged his vision as he stalked across the common room, ignoring the tipped-over chair, the scattering of toys, the dozen other hallmarks of a nice normal life. There was nothing ‘normal’ about Rider, and nothing normal about the acidic emotional scream that echoed along his own nerves.

A window shattered suddenly with a _crack_ and the echoing report of the damned rifle; Maxwell swore and dashed for the doorway and the yard beyond. Fucker was going to get inside if he didn’t stop woolgathering. Carefully, carefully he slipped outside into the porch, down the steps — no sign of Rider —

_Can I use the damn itch to find the bastard?_

If he thought at it hard enough, it increased; increased even more when he faced towards the garage.

_Damn damn damn — I need to get moving —_

A shadow fell across him, footfalls landing lightly behind him, and he skidded to a half with both pistols leveled and ready to fire.

“Old man —”

Duo, framed by the porch, wild-haired and wild-eyed. The pistols lowered instantly; Maxwell was ready to strangle the brat.

“You stupid little fucker! The _fuck_ are you _doing_ , get back in there and follow Hilde you stubborn little —”

“I’m not going to go hide somewhere, old man —”

“Oh, but family shouldn’t fight~ like this, it hurts me so _much_ and it makes everyone so _unhappy_ —”

Like a spectre, bloodless and colourless save for the splash of rusty blood that splashed the front of his tattered duster like some bizarre blossom, Rider slid into view from around the corner of the building. Radiating a burning, hate-filled disappointment, he lifted his rifle and then ran instead of firing, circling through the yard like a mad dancer; Maxwell roared and gave chase, the hem of his cassock rustling through the unmowed grass.

“Duo don’t fucking argue with me _get in the damn house!_ ”

The bang of a door echoed behind him — the kid retreating inside, he hoped — and just in time, as Rider was turning at bay in the middle of the yard, mad eyes gleaming like sea blue witchfires as he suddenly, too smoothly, inhumanly smoothly lifted the rifle to his shoulder and fired.

_Not this time, asshole —_

Useful stuff, grass; it was slippery as hell, and sometimes that was a good thing. Jerking sidewise, Maxwell slid a good four paces and felt the burn of a grazing hit along his hipbone.

Scopes were for amateurs; he didn’t need to take the time. Down on one knee, he opened up with both barrels and grinned like a madman as Rider took both shots in the leg and the gut, sending the man skidding backwards and leaving a trail of crimson though the trampled grass. He could feel the fury, crazed, and incoherent and layered with bubbling agony, boiling out of the man’s mind; it was almost impossible to keep his own thoughts together.

‘Almost’ wasn’t good enough.

This stupid bastard wasn’t good enough.

Maxwell lurched to his feet and advanced on the writhing Rider, dropping his off-hand pistol as a bolt of pain lanced down his arm. He only needed the one hand anyway to finish the bastard off.

Now, what was that Winner had called him?

“Not good enough, _It-Nashar —!_ ”

“ _HOW DARE YOU —_ “

The wall of rage, towering and bottomless, reared up like a physical object and crushed Maxwell into the lawn as surely as a physical blow, leaving him gasping for air, pistol falling from a hand gone nerveless and numb. Seconds later Rider was on top of him, a blood-slicked nightmare of tatters and burning eyes and scarlet-stained colourless hair that clung like seaweed to a drowning man. Maxwell tried to buck him off, tried to plant a knee in that bleeding gut; Rider ignored it all, hands like claws that hooked around Maxwell’s neck, pushed his face further into the soil.

_… Damnit …_

Darkness began to dance in front of his eyes, a macabre counterpoint to the red haze of anger that was not his and the screaming, shrill voice — so very familiar, oh yes, you blond bastard what did you create — that filled his mind.

_: HOW DARE YOU USE THAT HOW DARE YOU CALL ME THAT :_

Another kick; a squelch of blood, a vicious jolt as Rider rammed his own knee into Maxwell’s abdomen —

_: I’LL SHOW YOU ALL I’LL SHOW YOU I CAN MAKE MY OWN CHOICE :_

_: YOU WON’T CONTROL ME I PLAY WHAT I WANT I DO WHAT I WANT —* :_

Between one heartbeat and the next the litany ended, the pressure ended, the darkness halted; and Rider crumpled like a broken doll across the gasping, coughing Father Maxwell in one final fountain of his own heart’s blood. Shuddering he pushed the body away; silent and still, Rider looked too much, much too much, like Winner. Only then did he look up.

[Duo stood over them, splashed with crimson](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/comixologist/2005538/121426/121426_original.png), eyes dark as two black pits as he met his father’s gaze.

In his hands he clutched a pair of kitchen knives.

“Old man. I’m not letting anyone get you or anyone else here. Ever.

“ _There’s_ my reason.”


End file.
